>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> evan osnos is here. he's a staff writer at the new yorker magazine. he was the china correspondent

from 2005 to 2013. he is written about his experiences in a country that is undergoing rapid change and it is called age of ambition. said thatker has evan osnos gives a 21st-century china the way journalists gave us the gilded age. i'm pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. george was rather complement three. >> he knows the gilded age. the first one and the one we are going through now so i appreciate the comment. >> why's it hard to define the ambition of china? >> operates on two levels. you had the national ambition, don wiest -- the one we see every day here. it is the one pushing china out into the south china sea. it is a remarkable thing to see. the one that is harder to see, the one you see on the ground when you live in china and talk to people is the ambition of the

personal lives and private lives and their families wishes to transform themselves to this economic metamorphosis. >> you have been interested in this for a while. the individual life. >> that's right. that is what surprised me. everything i learned about china and studied was about the collective experience. the confucian society. i got there and found that people were not talking about roots, they were talking about themselves. that forced me to rethink how i understood how the society was organized. >> you look at the profile which is part of the book. let me talk about the broader picture. this book, it says something about china. you in your publisher looked into the idea of the book being published in china. >> that's right. it is not being published in china. some chinese publishers got in touch with me and said they wanted to publish it. there is a big market for

foreign authors in china being published and translated. a would love the idea of reaching chinese readers because it feels like a fair bargain. if i can give back to them his story that i have pulled from them. publish it in chinese, it became clear i would have to make cuts to the book about dissonance or political things. >> they would cut everything, including the president. >> exactly. everyone's book test the pastor the sensors. the cuts would be very small or some cases very big. i decided i didn't want to cut it because i thought i would be giving an unfair picture to the chinese reader of what matters. i'm quite sure it will get there anyway. on publishing in taiwan. >> why the title? of the three engines of

what is propelling china at the moment. if you think about it, the one that is most apparent is the search for fortune. everybody gets up in the morning and says how will i get one close to that prosperous lifestyle. why not? they should. that is universal element. as the accumulate property, one of the things they discover as they could no longer afford to be ill-informed the goods you have to know who is setting the roles and where they are going. all of a sudden, yet this demand for truth. this investigative impulse which was never possible in china. i met these great reporters and editors who are doing incredible work under difficult conditions. >> they're had totally truthful and candid in private conversation. >> they will tell you a lot of things. one of the stories we get is tipped off by the people in the chinese press that would love to write the story. the third piece is faith.

youh is what happens after have satisfied your basic questions about the law and politics. what is my role of the citizen an or a human? -- big accidental quantities the big x essential questions and people are going out and finding it out themselves. you have a high tycoons and you have everything in between. >> when did the new china begin? >> 1978 and that is a key moment. that is when the country was liberated from socialist economics. and thed on to mao imagery of the party and the people's republic of china. what is so interesting is the word that chinese people use when they describe that moment, the moment when the collective farms and factories were disbanded. is tord they use unfettered a prisoner. >> to release.

>> exactly. it is a visceral picture and that is how it feels for people. that is the day when they were sent out on their own to figure out what it meant. >> why did he decide to do this? who educated him? >> he is a remarkable story. end, it was survival that drove his decision. he recognized he was not an economist, but he was smart and surrounds himself with great economic minds and practical people. they realized that the era of economics was leading them to ruin. in 1978, china had a lower standard of living that north korea per capita. if they continued in that path, everything they fought for would be lost. when he realized was that he couldn't link is one part which was the fantasy of a certain kind of collective economy that was never going to materialize, but they can hold onto power. what he did was strike this bargain which was this

authoritarian system with this raucous free-market society. trying to put those into a single portrait -- >> we will let you have a better china as long as you let us rule it. >> that has been the bargain. it sometimes works. >> have you defined what it means to be chinese? what is the operative philosophy? is a a think there shared american idea. it would be something like liberty. in china today, there is no single shared idea. i think that makes people uncomfortable. with the government is trying to do is to say the shared idea should be renewal rejuvenation. it should be the flag. i think people are not convinced. if you talk to people about what they call the chinese dream, this is now an official slogan.

he got the power and very smartly said we needed better marketing. he said we are now in pursuit of the chinese dream, inelegant solution with somebody for propaganda problems. everybody interprets it slightly different. conclusion i reach after thinking about this was the thing that people are looking for now in however they define it is dignity. for some people, dignity comes in the form of enormous financial success. finally they have arrived but for other people, dignity comes in the ability to have something small to have it be yours. that is a change does there is not much change in chinese cosmology from dignity. young people want to live a certain kind of life. >> were the contradictions and the fault lines? >> they are a few specific things. you cannot talk about china today but to a -- unless you talk about the gap between the rich and poor. that is not unique to china. we are dealing with a lot of the same questions but the

difference is the chinese is run by the same communist party and creates a day-to-day contradiction that people are confronted with. the environment is an enormous issue. when we probably talked about this for the first time a few would've, i think it been a much lower on the list of priorities. today, when you talk to any chinese political leader, they would say ealing with the environment has become a critical issue because they are taking people that are not political in nature, middle-class folks that don't care about joining demonstrations but they would join if it would help the health of their kids. >> whenever they talk about them, they have said the following -- what i have to do is something about corruption. there is something about the environment and do something to ensure a stable growth pattern. those of the mandates i have. >> you have seen him put corruption at the top of the list. i think corruption is the meta issue for all the things we're

talking about because it is about a government that is ceased to function for the purposes of benefiting the individual citizen. that is the way it is perceived. that is the way he has framed it. he is trying to hit the reset button on his own government's performance and is saying we are going to reorient. it is hard to do that. >> how much a self are they prepared to engage in? the party and the standing committee and the people influencing decisions? >> they are prepare to do an operational self-analysis, but not the kind of metaphysical self-analysis which would undermine their political hold. what he is doing right now with corruption israel. he is going at -- -is real. he is going after people. the former security chief -- there have been rumors he would be the highest ranking person to go down.

>> it would pretty severe. >> he would likely go to prison for the rest of his life or the death penalty. he has not been formally indicted yet. >> that is the talk. >> i was in beijing last month and that is what everybody is waiting for. i think the other piece of this is the corruption campaign has its limits. you heard recently that the former president sent the message to the president saying let's not get -- let's not go overboard. --why he's he wanting that why is he wanting that? >> that demonstrates that nobody is immune. he was as strong as dick cheney was in his day. >> that nobody is immune. >> that means if you another official, that makes you uncomfortable. that breaks the rules of the game. what they are doing by going

after him is to say everybody is fair game. it is basically establishing that he is going to push this campaign as far as he wanted to go. senior leaders have a reason not to want this to become full-scale intraparty workfare. that would be disastrous. study aboutto the his family and how much he made while he was premier. anything happen to him because of all the press? >> he left office and he is a private citizen. it tends to be that china's political culture is that after you leave office, you stop having a public role. you still maintain some private role. the word in beijing is that experience in which the new york times disclosed that his family had accumulated around $2 billion in assets over the course of his time in office,

that was obviously damaging to him and his reputation in the west. it also put him in a complicated position in chinese politics because the way that was interpreted was that he doesn't have control over his own family. if he can keep his own cousins and siblings and wife from profiting from his name, this is a sign of weakness personally. i think that has been damaging. >> tell me about some of the individual stories about people here. that i think ones the person of its written about the least. the guided what write about in year nobody knows is a guy who was a young english teacher. a chinese son of a coal miner. i learned that enormous amount by spending time with them because he is a guy by all reasonable chinese metrics should be happy today. his life is unimaginably better. his father spent 30 years underground. michael as he calls himself can

go today online and watch anything he wants. he can read in english. when i talked him about his life, he is frustrated that he cannot get traction. this is a subtle thing that can -- that doesn't come through everyday. he feels like he is frustrated. the opportunity that existed for his peer group 10 years ago is narrowing. this is a real problem for china because after all, the bargain that was struck was your life will continue to get better every year. they are trying to figure out how to continue to do that at the same time the economy is slowing down. he told he wants -- why is i should just like the everyone else? by which he means, i have an individual sense of my own ambitions and desires. just because i was born poor doesn't mean i should be satisfied with something small. >> what is confucius say about the individual? >> incident put much stock on the individual.

would allow philosophers believed was you have to have a system that would control the wayward impulses and appetites of the public because -- in some ways, i inc. the errors of the political leaders leave that. that is the inherent tension theeen what is so clearly power of individuals who want to find their own sense of the good life and the state which still believes today that we can tell you what the chinese dream is. we know what it is. trust us. people say we are not sure we are ready to trust you. >> will this party survive? >> the economy has been adaptable. it is much more adaptable and pragmatic and we thought it was. if i had to guess today what would happen, the communist party will redefine itself in order to survive. meaning it is already shown it is not going to stay attached to communist economics. >> was the biggest thing standing in the way for china

being able to play a significant role in the role? how the global ambition and be accepted as a player? and be able to do the things it wants to do at home.? >> one of the things has been a surprise is that we expected china's soft power push was going to be affected. five or 10 years ago, we were talking about the money they were spending on television and radio in africa and they were pushing their message very effectively. what you don't see today is that ,here are people in kenya nigeria saying we want to adopt chinese political valleys. they say they want chinese investment, money. >> chinese international resources. >> they also face the risk that our own politicians could be criticized for being in bed with the chinese. what i think has been a surprise and a hard thing for chinese the fixed is to sell a persuasive political message.

>> doesn't go against the grain of how they have been conducting foreign-policy which has been described as agnostic. >> the noninterventionist i nature because they don't want people to intervene at home. that also means they don't have an affirmative message to send. what they have is practical message. a transactional relationship. i think there is something -- we don't really have all that much memory of when we had this moral glamour on the world stage. we did. i can tell you as somebody was been living abroad for the past 11 years, the united states today, even in the complicated moment in which we find areelves -- we still present something unusual in the world and something distinctive, something distinctive. some idea that we are there currency of last resort. china is not there yet.

it is not yet articulating a message that people around the world say that is where i want to go. that will be the secret to success. >> is there a strong nationalistic force that has potential in china to rise and make china something different than it is? something more adventurous? something more aggressive? something that want to take advantage of its power? >> there is a nationalist movement. of a certain kind. it is one that is driven not by an ideologically aggressive impulse. there was nobody in china today that is saying we should be conducting ethnic cleansing. that is important to distinguish because you hear these days in southeast asia people say it feels to us like europe on the eve of world war ii. you have this powerful country that is claiming a larger share of territory. i think it is very important to draw a distinction. >> china and russia.

>> the chinese would say they have a lot of problems with what they've seen in crimea. this.re is also we saw the economy go from double digits to a prediction of seven plus percent. you read stories about the possibility of a realistic bust. how do you see it and how do they see it? >> they are very aware of the short-term problems and the long-term problems. these days, over the last couple of years, the story has flipped. we talked about the kinds of brewing trouble in the economy. most of the time people would say that is the shy show -- sideshow. the story is taken hold today that the chinese economic miracle -- neither caricature was completely correct. china today still does have this unusual political arrangement in which it holds the reigns over

where money goes, were credit goes. they do have the power to be able to rein in the shadow banks which represent the significant threat to the financial security of the country. if there was a country that can manage to get itself through this real estate boom without the kind of crisis that follows, it is china. i think we need to acclimate ourselves to the days -- 10% growth per year is over. >> had a nice run. >> had a great run. >> the book is called age of ambition. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ >> jo nesbo is here and one of norway's biggest writers according to the new yorker magazine. is the country's first international pop-culture star. his work belongs to crime fiction known as nordic noir. is best feeling about -- his best-selling series has sold 40

million copies. he recently released his new english thriller called "the son" about an imprisoned drug addict convicted of murder wrong late. welcome. this is an incredible story of you. a guy who had been a rock star, guy who is done so many things. then you find this great career as a writer. does it surprise you? >> well, i think it surprised me when -- at the age of 37, i wrote my first novel. but, it didn't surprise any of my friends or people around me. >> because they knew you had it in you? i would actually write the leverage for my friends bands. i would write short stories. i was of the generation that still wrote letters.

>> can you care to rise -- characterized -- are norwegian crime novels different? do they have their own identity? >> i think it is hard for me as in the region -- as a norwegian a scandinavian crime tradition that stems back to the 70's. writeh writers who would political crime. but, more importantly, they would write really good crime novels. it would take the crime novel from the kiosk into the bookstores. that was when young talented writers started using the crime novel as a vehicle for their storytelling talents. probably more prestigious

to write crime fiction in scandinavia during the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's than it was in other countries in europe. the 1990's, there were so many scandinavian writers and norwegian writers. that is probably part of the reason why right now scandinavia is experiencing this huge interest in not only the novels, but tv series. >> television is opened up for you. that's a place where you will plant your flag. -- what isresting interesting in writing and storytelling right now, the boundaries between the novel and the movie and the tv series are becoming more and more blurred. you find there somebody crossovers. -- so many crossovers. a writer once said the novel can

exist and have a right to exist only to the extent the novel is theg what only novel can do but i disagree. i think what we see now is that novels are becoming more like movies. movies are becoming more like novels. you see the hundred hour story of the tv series is becoming the next big thing. where we have probably the most cutting-edge storytelling right saidhich is if you had that the people 10 years ago, they would not believe you. >> you think you could pretty much do anything you want to? your talent is multiple, beginning with writing. if you can write and sing, you of a career there. right and have an

imagination, that's another career. if you write, and have political opinions, you of another career -- you have another career. is a broad -- it is a broad canvas. >> it boils down to storytelling. you always tell stories as a journalist. you can use your storytelling abilities for so many things. you can be a politician. >> you have a narrative. >> you can tell stories. yes, i think it can, but i also see -- i see the need to focus. i trust filmmakers who try to make the same movie over and over again. you have to look for that one thing that can make a difference. creator.survive the

that is probably what i am trying to do. >> tell me about "the son." it is a revenge fantasy, isn't it? -- itrted to use ago started two years ago. me and my friend were talking about jesus christ on the cross. we were talking about the creeds. i am not sure how the creed reads in english but directly translated from norwegian, the last part reads "he is sitting by god and from there he will come back to judge the living and the dead." it sounds like the tagline for a great movie. >> yes, it does. it probably is. >> it probably is. , i was thinking that this

story here is a story not only guyt this lonely, lonely timeas taken on him to do for all the people's sins. two murders in this case. there is also this revenge story. someone who is bound to come back and that is exactly what "the son" is going to do in the book. >> when you look at what he what did you want to create in him? what did you want us to think about him? want to manipulate you into

investing in him as a protagonist emotionally. that make him do things will make you question your own morality. would've chosen yourself given the same dilemma. that is what -- i think that is what we are looking for in stories. it is whether the main character, the one we are rooting for, will make the right moral choice. whether he is going to survive physically or solve the murder, that is interesting too. what we are really looking for is what is going to happen to his eternal soul. --a going to heaven or hell is it going to heaven or hell? if you also can make the reader sort of discover at some time in

that you rooted for the wrong team. of part have been sort of a prison experiment. people suddenly realizing they were capable of torturing the prisoners. normal people, that they were capable of evil. then, i had at least for short while put up a mirror for my readers and say, are you sure you're the whitright one to judge? >> when you write a novel like this, are you thinking your head -- are your head a movie you thinking in your head a movie? >> i am not. i have been part of a

generation where i have seen much more movies than i have read books. inevitably, you will get into winced -- you will get influenced by the rhythm and the way the movie is constructed. the three act structure of the movie. i do see that my stories are formatted. they have that written into it. s possible that yours deviant whoick ended up writing crime novels instead of what may seem as the alternative to everyone's benefit." it is possible a normal individual who enjoys the status is to savor the feeling of her feel -- relief and restore harmony that a fitting revenge affords the average civilized person. which are you? or both? >> i think i am both. [laughter]

>> it is nice the audience thinks that when. ay. >> the difficult thing about writing articles about your own viewpoints or doing interviews like this or for that sake playing in a band is that the storyteller could become the story. in my case and most writers' case, that is a boring story. i like to just put out things and make the reader judge for themselves. will get people provoked by what i put in my character's mouth. heroes thatke

are unlikely heroes. techniques tong make the bad guys, protagonist, and vice versa. it makes for more interesting stories and more interesting reading. unknowngian prisons are to americans who probably have put more people in prison than any other culture. are norwegian prisons different? more humane? more -- less punishing? >> they probably are. prisons inw american detail. say, i don't know

norwegian prisons -- >> how do you know them? >> i spent a little time in a prison. and, the problem -- warner thehers bought rights and had some directors look at it. >> the directors said what? >> they said the only problem with it is it uses a norwegian prison. we don't have prisons like that in the united states. >> what is your idea of punishment? is a darker than your country? i am not sure i have a clear idea of punishment.

think that is a difficult question to answer. what is punishment and what should punishment be? >> what is occupied about? norwegian tvs in series. i had that idea a long time ago. what do youthat think made stories where we could put some questions on the table? for example, what if norway has a modern democracy was occupied? us theupier would allow same privileges that we have had for years like we could go to barcelona or a week of shopping. we could seemingly have the same tv programs. we would have the same standard

of living. things,uld keep those beat would we willing to sacrifice? freedom and independence, what to does really mean? this is because norway was occupied during the second world war by germany. in moderne heroes norwegian history is from the second world war. in would our generation act the same situation? wrote the -- when i outline for the story, i had russia occupying norway. ight now, that seems like --

knew what was going to happen in ukraine. >> where was your ambition? how do you see it connecting all the dots? as a storyteller, my to writeis to be able something truly original. to say something that has has not been said before. of course, that is extremely ambitious. i don't think i have been able to do that yet, but i have to keep that ambition. i have to have something that will make me get up in the morning. riteink just doing that, w something that lasts longer. >> nice to have the union new york. >> thanks. >> jo nesbo and the book is

called "the son." back in a moment. ♪

krupp is here in years been the president of the environmental defense fund.

put his focus on shale. the production is made the u.s. the world's fastest-growing hydrocarbon producer. economic benefits, fracking poses potential risks to human environment. he and mike bloomberg wrote in april 29 new york times op-ed about fracking. he also writes an essay titled baby." just drill, dril welcome back. what is shale? >> it is a formation of rock that years ago, long time ago trapped inside of it in many cases both oil and natural gas depending on which shale formation and other hydrocarbons. for a long time, nobody knew how to get either of those fossil fuels out of it in an economic

way, but over the last decade or so, people are figured out if you drill down and drill it open,l, and crack you can extract the resource. >> where is the debate? >> the debate is over the fact it is aale gas tremendous economic boon for the united states and has environmental benefits as well in that when natural gas is burned, it is a lot less sulfur, a lot less particulates, and even half the carbon dioxide of burning coal. of the amount of co2 by burning coal? >> yes, when you burn natural gas. despite those benefits, including more jobs, lower prices for electricity for americans, a renaissance of manufacturing in this country. despite that, there are major

problems, real problems and very legitimate concerns with the way we have gone about exploiting shale. >> what is the concern? >> the concern is that it has been done in a very sloppy way in some cases. it has contaminated water, not from the fractures, but from spills at the surface where chemicals get into people's or air pollution coming out of these wells that has sometimes made people sick. n washington county, pennsylvania, not long ago and i met a woman who told me a story that she had been stored -- forced to move out of her farm. her son was living down the street safely away from the noxious fumes in in to be able to get on a school bus. she was living temporarily out of her car. there are real problems lie have

seen. >> your argument is that those problems can be handled? >> yes, they can be handled. unfortunate, many in industry stop there because the fact that they can in some alternate universe be handled does not mean that we are handling them right. because there are 6000 operators, thousands of operators, is going to take not a few operators doing things right -- we have those. compliance to take with those laws in order to protect the neighbors and protect the atmosphere because the fact that gas when burned commits have to carbon dioxide is not the end of the global warming story. it turns out that even small amounts of methane, methane is natural gas, that leak into the

atmosphere anywhere from the eell to the burner tip, thos undermined the carbon dioxide advantage. because methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years it is released. that means to be better than less it has to be kept than 2.5% of the product that we take out of the ground, we have to keep it below that to have an advantage. >> are you trying to serve as a middle ground in this debate? >> no, i am trying to advocate for the citizens that live around these wells and recognize the fact that shale gas is a fact of life in america. it is being exploited. protect people who live around it. their right to clean water and clean air. we have got to protect the atmosphere. whatevero harvest

climate advantage there is over cold by keeping the week grade of methane down. >> some people like to say that you are the one person in the environmental field that speaks to corporate america. that somehow you of a relationship with them and have some influence with them. >> i think a lot of people in the community speak to corporate america, not just me. i think what we recognize is and this is a fact of life wishing it away is not going to happen even if we at the environmental defense fund are for rapid deployment of solar, wind power. though sources of energy have come down way in price. we have huge programs to push those truly clean energy sources out, pedal to the metal on renewables. even if we time, stopped using natural gas as a fuel in america tomorrow, two

thirds of the natural gas we take out of the ground is being used in manufacturing. is being used to heat and cool homes and buildings. it is important to clean it up even as we tried to celebrate renewable -- try to accelerate renewables. >> one guest after another comes to the table and talks about it. just do matthews was the most recent. withng about it has to do a tax on carbon. >> well, there is no question that the burning of fossil fuels has a lot of external costs. until we put a price on carbon and a limit on the amount of these gases they go into the atmosphere, we are not going to get it right. principle of capping omissions of leading entrepreneurs figure out how to meet those caps is a good

principle. it works really well with sulfur. we cannot be wetted to one particular approach. we need to figure out how to minimize gase. what it turns out that most people don't know is that of the global warming that is being caused by today's omissions, half of that is being caused not by carbon dioxide, but by these short-lived climate pollutants. of that half, methane is two thirds of that, the most important. it turns out that right now we have a tremendous opportunity to take a bite out of america's footprint on global warming by reducing emissions of these methane's -- of methane from oil and gas. >> it would do that by? said heeral in colorado

did it by saying that environmental the -- environmental defense fund, i wanted to sit down with the energy producers and figure out a way to clean up the air. >> were they willing to do that? >> they were. they understood that they want to operate in a responsible way and win back public support and confidence. together, we crafted a real breakthrough. the toughest regulations in the country. >> they said we could live with this? >> they all said that and it turns out these regulations will tons of,000 conventional air pollutants and methane, about 100,000 air. out of the

the brown cloud the denver had been doing such a good job minimizing has been glittering androwing with the drilling now will shrink again thanks to the new regulation. the methane emissions will be reduced by somewhere between a third and 40%. that is how you do it. it turns out that methane emissions, one of the biggest global warming pollutants, could be produced by 40%. at a cost of just a penny per thousand cubic feet of produced gas. committee --e a were chew on a committee to recommend how to make it environmentally safe -- fracking? >> in 2011, we issued a report on the safe half ford for natural gas. there has been some progress but not enough. >> on a different issue, do you

support the keystone pipeline? >> no. i am with the rest of the firemen to community on this. it is a move backward to very carbon intensive fuel. i can't think of a worse way to make petroleum products. in fact of the matter is america, thanks to fracking, we have more oil than we have refining capacity. when it was originally --plicated - thought of, th no longer the caseat is. presidentyou assess obama's environmental policies and what he has been able to achieve? >> the president has been a leader on climate change and i think he is getting more focused on it. in the first term, he was able to double the miles per gallon standard for cars. that is one of the big sources

of greenhouse gases. now, he is absolutely committed to issuing epa regulations on power plants which is 40% of america's carbon pollution. >> is there are ways between finding solutions, being able to safewayshale gas in a and the velocity of global warming? the race between being able to find that before global warming exercises a serious impact beyond now. >> there is a race against time to deploy a maximum solar, maximum wind, energy efficiency. >> is there anything holding back the efficiency? >> yes. we have a company -- more than one company that are putting solar panels on people's homes. the company pays for it. you get a contract to buy electricity through less than

the utility would sell it .t. that business model is not allowed in florida. we need to clear way the thicket that is impeding florida. >> is it because of the power of the energy companies lobbying? tell me how big the edf is. >> we spent $120 million last year. we have 500 people diploid in america. about 30 in beijing. you have to let folks in china and we are working with the people in china. theeople told me that president of china said he has three things he has to do. one, yet to clean up the air. upm, he has to clean corruption and three, he asked the economy on a sustainable footing. exporting it from a economy to a demand commodit -- economy.

>> that is consistent with everything i know from the folks in beijing. the people and the government are serious and taking strong measures to clean up the air. i would not bet against them. when they set out to do something, the chinese government, they tend to get it done. >> because it is not a democracy? >> they meet their goals in a five-year year plan and is set some strong goals. that to thehey tie sub -- to the survivability of the party. >> it is a political system. as increasing number of americans want environmental cleanup, 85% of people under 30 want -- >> what is the problem? articulate the problem. >> i think the politicians have to catch up with the people. i think they will do that in the united states -- >> do you think they will do

that in the 2014 elections? >> i think environmental issues are becoming -- >> here is the point. the president campaigned for the marmot -- for the environment in 2008. won with auy who significant victory and a democratic congress. >> the president had a priority in health care. i might have picked a different priority, but it took a long time to get that legislation passed. we ran out of time. but, in laws like the civil rights movement in the united states, there were a lot of different attempts to pass strong civil rights legislation. the first eight passed the most, the weakest. these are things that take time. because we have one shot and we

didn't make it, doesn't mean that we won't in the future. we will because of the future of our country and our economy depends on it. >> thank you for coming. >> thank you. ♪ .

>> this week on "political capital," ambassador thomas pickering on benghazi. julianna goldman and phil mattingly on backlog at the fed. hillary.cussion of >> we began the program with a former united states ambassador toh